Family
by RBMarika
Summary: The way Sarah says Gabrielle and Xena? when they come to rescue her from the cell in "Who's Gurkan?" sparked my idea for this story. It seemed like Sarah had grown up hearing about them together. This is mostly a retelling of "Who's Gurkan?" from children's — Sarah, Virgil and Eve's — perspective.


_The way Sarah says "Gabrielle and Xena?" when they come to rescue her from the cell in _Who's Gurkan? _sparked my idea for this story. It seemed like Sarah had grown up hearing about them together. This is mostly a retelling of _Who's Gurkan? _from children's — Sarah, Virgil and Eve's — perspective. _

They came on the same day every year. The day was during the summer. It would always be warm and sunny, but it always seemed to rain once the sun had set on Potidaea. Sarah's mother had only recently told her that they were not actually her family. She was confused by that. They had always been Uncle Joxer and her cousin, Virgil. Her mother told her her aunt, Gabrielle considered Joxer a brother so he and his son were family, even though they shared no blood.

They came every year on Aunt Gabrielle's birthday. Sarah had never met Aunt Gabrielle. She had disappeared many years before with Aunt Xena. Her mother had told her about them, so had her Uncle Joxer, but she learned the most about them from Virgil. He was a couple years older than her seven years and could read much better. Each year he was would bring a few scrolls he found in his father's room. He said they were written by their Aunt Gabrielle. They would sneak off to the barn together and he would read them to her.

Once he finished reading them, they would play out the story.

"Why do you always get to be Aunt Xena?" Sarah asked him.

"'Cause I have a sword," he said pulling the wooden sword from his belt. He pointed it toward her and then something against the wall made him smile. He walked over and picked up the broken broom handle and handed it to her. "A staff. You can be Aunt Gabrielle."

Sarah took it with a smile. They then turned their attention to imaginary army of Romans that had just entered the barn.

She and Virgil continued their game each year. Once she was able to read for herself, he intentionally forgot the scrolls when he and Uncle Joxer left. She would read through them alone in her room and hope that one day she could be as great as warrior as her aunts had been. But one day when a raider attacked her village, she could not be as strong as her aunts had been and was taken from her home.

Over the years, she had forgotten about her life in Potidaea, the stories of her aunts and her cousin, Virgil. Or maybe she had blocked it from her memory. All she thought about was being better than her competition and pleasing the man she thought she loved.

Many years later when Virgil walked beside his cousin and her parents into Potidaea, the village felt familiar but he was not sure why. He remembered as he stood with his family members and watched Gabrielle be welcomed home by Lila. He had been there before as a child. He had a cousin that lived in that house. He thought and thought as he polished his sword sitting next to Eve.

_What was her name? Think, think…_

"Who's Sarah?" Gabrielle asked.

"My daughter."

"Your daughter? Xena, I have a niece," Gabrielle said looking over to Xena, who smiled.

_Sarah. _Virgil thought to himself with a wash of clarity. He used to visit this house every year with his father on Gabrielle's birthday. They celebrated it in remembrance because they thought she had died with Xena. He had taken those scrolls from his parents' bedroom and read them to Sarah in the barn. He had completely forgotten about it until that moment. But, they had stopped coming each year for some reason. He was never told what it really was.

"She was taken by the raider, Gurkan."

Eve squished the orange she was peeling. He glanced over at her. He hated her at first for killing his father and it seemed easy to assume that she did something to his cousin, Sarah, too. But, his father would have called her family — his cousin — so he had allowed himself to like her and then actual grown to.

Virgil had difficulty comprehending everything that was said and happened so fast. His almost forgotten cousin, Sarah, had been captured by a raider, taken to a walled city in North Africa and Gabrielle ran outside and Xena chased after her. He glanced over at Eve and found that she was already looking at him. If they had that level of urgency, all of them were about to travel to North Africa and get Sarah back.

"Stay here," Eve said to Virgil as she got up from their spot on the ship's deck and walked towards Gabrielle.

They had been sitting next to each other for maybe an hour or so watching Gabrielle fight the air with her sais. Virgil hadn't notice how concerned Xena looked, but Eve pointed it out to him. He knew she would be more aware of what they were thinking. They were her parents after all. He would have asked Eve's thoughts on his agreement to sale her mother into slavery, but he was too scared to cross Aunt Xena about it. Eve seemed to feel the same, so he felt better.

Selling her was easy and he walked out of the city with a bag of money he was not sure what he was supposed to do with, but he felt accomplished. Aunt Gabrielle did not think so, and forced him right back into the city. All he had to do was give her into slavery, because Eve had said something about Amazons being too wild. He was not sure what that was all about.

The number one wife watched the strange goofy boy, who claimed to be a pirate as he watched the Amazon Warrior Queen from Greece dance. She was confused. Something about him and how he referred to the short, blonde that was dancing for her husband seemed familiar. At one point the boy seemed to make eye contact with one of the newer wives and then stopped acting so goofy. Sarah looked over to the new wife, who called herself Sophia.

Something about her had also seemed familiar. She thought she might have an idea about who she was but that was impossible. It was just her mind dreaming and she had thought she had trained it to stop doing that. It had been too many years to wish her family or missing heroes from her childhood would save her from her current life. But, that goofy boy quickly glanced at her before he ran out of the room when Sophia the new wife jumped on the Amazon Warrior Queen from Greece. Sarah looked down at them. Logically she knew who they were, but she felt like they were someone else too.

"What are you doing back here?" Eve questioned Virgil as soon as he stepped onto the ship.

"There is nothing more I can do," he said, feeling like his answer wasn't enough. "Gabrielle was about to pull a knife on Gurkan but Xena stopped her. I left once the guard started on them"

"You just left them like that?"

"I'm sure they can handle it. Probably far better than either of us could," he said.

She nodded in agreement. "So, do you know if Sarah is there?"

"I think so," he admitted. "There was a girl that kept looking at me, like she might have recognized me. She felt familiar and looked a little like Gabrielle so maybe it is her. But, I don't know."

"They'll find her," Eve stated.

He nodded. "I never doubted that."

Two of the new girls were causing enough of a disturbance that Sarah was forced to take notice. She was confused at first by how it could possibly be. For a while, they hadn't even been together. The one called Sophia has been taken to the dungeon after Gurkan thought her actions in the main room had been suspicious. The Amazon Warrior Queen from Greece had joined the other wives in their room.

Sarah couldn't understand why, but she wanted to peer into the room and watch her. She did see her a few times. There was a catwalk above the wives' room. It was covered with vines and Sarah had learned over the years where she could stand to see and hear everything that was going on below without being seen.

"You came to get her out?" one of the wives from Greece who had been sold with Sophia asked the Amazon Warrior Queen. Another wife from Greece and one from the far off land of Japa stared at the Amazon Warrior Queen eagerly awaiting an answer.

She just nodded at first. But, after seeing it was not enough of an answer she elaborated.

"I have to. She is only here because of me, to help me, to help my family, our family. We're soul mates and I can't leave her here," she said.

The wife from Japa nodded at her understandingly. The first Greek wife looked as if she might cry and the second scoffed in annoyance.

"Look, I don't care what you think of me," the Amazon Warrior Queen said. "I have a purpose here. So if any of you know where either of them is please tell me."

"What's in it for us?" the second Greek wife groaned.

"We'll help everyone that we can. It's what we do," she said with a small smile.

The other times Sarah couldn't spot her. She thought she might not be in the room, which was against the rules during free hours. But, there was something about the Queen. Sarah assumed the other wives felt it too by the way they looked at her, like one might look at Hades as he speaks about Persephone. There was somewhere else she needed to be and it seemed Sarah, Gurkan, not even Zeus could stop her from getting there.

"What had they told you about Lila?" Virgil asked out of the blue.

He gazed over at Eve, but she didn't turn her attention away from the walled city in the distance. She hadn't in hours. She had just stood there, absent mindedly tapping her mother's chakham against the ledge of the ship. He was confused at first that she was even holding it. Hadn't the Messenger of Eli sworn off weapons and violence? The light glistened off something at her waist and he saw the two sais tucked into her belt. He realized the reason she had the weapons was quite the opposite of violence.

"Not much really. They would remember something here and there and then explain it to me. It's not like I was ever sat down and told all about her. Why? What did you know of her?" Eve replied to his question.

"I used to visit her farm when I was a kid, well her and Gabrielle's family farm I guess. I think I used to play with Sarah as a child. My father and I went there every year on Gabrielle's birthday. The memory seemed so unimportant until a few days ago that I can't seem to decipher if it is real or just a story I made up in my head. But, the way that girl kept looking at me in there…it has to be real, doesn't it?"

Before he said it, he wasn't sure if he was going to tell anyone what he remembered. Oddly, Eve seemed like the easiest person to tell. Sure, the story involved his father and maybe she would have been there too if Aries hadn't taken her parents away for 25 years. But, she seemed to be the only one that would agree with him that it was just a missed opportunity and nobody was to blame for it.

Eve didn't response for a moment. She knew exactly what it was like to have a memory and not be sure if it was real or not. In some of her memories she had slaughtered villages with a Roman army. In other she had screamed at a Roman army to stop. In some it seemed she stood up to the powers of the underworld to protect Gabrielle. In others, she tried to kill her. What was a nightmare, what was real, what was fantasy? She was never really sure.

She twirled the chakham in one hand and touched the sais with the other, wishing the two people who would make her not feel so scared would come back and tell her everything was going to be fine.

"Yes, it has to be," she finally said.

A few days after the Amazon Warrior Queen arrived, Sophia was released from the dungeon. One of the young guards, who had taken a liking to Sarah, had told her she was being released, a rarity for someone who was sent to Gurkan's dungeons.

Sarah rushed to her vine-covered spot on the catwalk to watch Sophia, now to be called Fatima, be returned to the other wives. She wasn't sure why she wanted to be there so badly.

A pair of guards pushed the beaten, swallow, fatigued Fatima into the wives' room. She stood steady for only a moment before collapsing to the floor. The Amazon Warrior Queen seemed to whisper a name under her breathe before she ran to Fatima, pulling her off the floor and resting her head against her chest.

The name she had whispered pulled at Sarah's heart and threw her back into childhood memories she wasn't sure were real or not.

"_Why do you always get to be Aunt Xena?" she asked the boy in her memory. _

"'_Cause I have a sword," he said pulling the wooden sword from his belt. He pointed it toward her. He walked over to the wall and picked up the broken broom handle and handed it over. "A staff. You can be Aunt Gabrielle." _

She couldn't have said Xena, Sarah thought. But, the way the Amazon Warrior Queen looked at her seemed like love. Or as least what loved looked like to most people. Sarah had realized growing up in Gurkan's compound and hearing what the other wives said, she had a strange idea of what love was supposed to look like.

She turned and pushed her back against the railing of the catwalk as she had another memory shaking into a realization. _Amazon. Warrior. Queen. _It was stupid really to think of how many times she had said the three words in her head and not realized together and separately they seemed to describe an aunt her almost-forgotten mother used to tell her about and a hero a goofy boy in a barn used to teach her about.

She peered over her shoulder and through the vines to, whoever the two of them were. She watched the amazon, the warrior, the queen, the possible aunt, the other blonde wife lean down and kiss the Thracian, Sophia, Fatima, maybe Xena, the possible aunt, the possible childhood hero on the forehead.

The next few days moved so fast for Sarah, she could barely comprehend what was happening. Gurkan had entered the main room and made all the newer wives lie on their faces. Of all he had to choice from her picked Fatima, who was lying beside the Amazon Warrior Queen, to dance for him that night.

Sarah watched her dance intently, just like everyone else did. She was not sure what to think of the two wives that seemed forever connected and more mature and stronger than any other woman that had been bought by Gurkan at auction.

Her dance ended and she asked for something from Gurkan, smugly and matter-of-factly.

Sarah's heart clenched when she heard what she had said. This vile woman couldn't have been the aunt, half of the hero duo her mind had been racing to turn her into. What kind of family would commend her to death?

She had been taken, wrapped in a cloak and thrown into a dungeon cell. It was dark and she was alone, cold, sad and wanting to kick herself for ever believing someone was coming to save her. Just when she was weighing her options on if taking her own life or allowing herself to be killed boded for a better chance at the Elysian Fields, someone opened the door to her cell. She had assumed it would be a bruiting guard, but it was quite the opposite.

"Sarah," the Amazon Warrior Queen said. "I'm Gabrielle. This is Xena," she said motion to Sophia, Fatima, whoever standing at the door.

She had been watching them for so long and most of that time she didn't want to let herself be that hopeful. But, there was something about the way the Amazon Warrior Queen was looking at her made her believe they were the heroes from her childhood.

Sarah told the blonde, the Amazon Warrior Queen, Gabrielle to get away. But, she didn't listen. She hugged her and spoke words of comfort. For a moment, Sarah let herself think that all her fake memories were real. A least a few weeks a year she spent all her time with Aunt Gabrielle and Aunt Xena who had come to visit her parents' farm. Mostly they come alone, but sometimes they brought a baby dressed in green with them or an uncle she hardly could remember and that goofy boy from the barn.

The moment was broken by her childhood hero in the doorway.

"We should go," she said.

Sarah told her nobody could escape from Gurkan. Xena smiled as Gabrielle said they could. Xena drug him into the room and wrapped him in the cloak she had gently pulled from Sarah's shoulders.

"Looks nice on you, ya bastard," she said before shackling him to the wall.

Eve almost jumped out of her skin and Virgil laughed to himself when the two of them saw Xena and Gabrielle sailing towards them with boats full of girls dressed similar to the blonde girl sitting between them, who they assumed was their cousin, Sarah.

"Mother," Eve said, almost as a cry as she embraced Xena as she boarded the ship.

"You better not have been worried about me," Xena said to Eve. She pulled away and smiled at her. "Show the same to Gabrielle and your cousin," she said as she moved on to give a handshake to Virgil.

"You did the exact opposite of what I asked of you," Xena said firmly to Virgil.

He panicked for a moment trying to think of a good way to say he was too afraid of his aunt that was so much smaller than him and only a few years older.

"Your father would be proud," Xena said with a smirk, hitting him on the back.

He sighed in relief.

Eve had thought the ship felt big and lonely, but as it sailed through the darkness that night it felt quite the opposite. It was far too hot below deck, so everyone was sleeping under the stars. In addition to Sarah, Xena and Gabrielle had brought 32 other women onto the ship.

Eve looked over to where they were sleeping on a different part of the forecastle deck. Xena had her back to her and she couldn't see Gabrielle. She smiled to herself. She knew they'd be exhausted. The 32 women were from 25 different lands and they had spent hours trying to figure out the best course so they could get each of them home.

Sailing back to Greece first and then on the other lands would have been an easy option but Xena had decided against it. She seemed to be able to read Sarah's face and see that she wanted to stay with her and Gabrielle and have them there once she had to face Lila. Eve understood. Facing everything seemed easier when they were there to threaten anyone who had the faintest idea of threatening her.

Eve scanned the ship trying to remember where Sarah had made her spot. She got up and walked to the railing to get a better view of all of the deck. She spotted her and then felt sad about it. She should have remembered. Sarah's bedroll was off in a corner by itself. The other women had hardly spoken to her since they all got on the ship. They seemed to be afraid of her, which Eve thought was absurd because she was clearly the most afraid of any of them. Sarah wasn't on her bedroll. Eve saw her standing at the opposite end of the ship looking out into the vast blackness. It seemed to Eve that they were the only two awake. She decided to make her way across the ship to her.

She tried to make noise when she approached her, an act of thoughtfulness she had learned from her mother, Xena, who was also exceptionally good at sneaking up on people.

"Hi," Eve said when she stepped next to Sarah and stood at the railing with her.

Sarah weakly looked over at her and tried to smile.

"Are you doing all right?" Eve asked.

Sarah gave no answer. "How long is it going to take for us to reach Potidaea?"

"A few weeks, I think," she said, trying to remember all the plans Xena and Gabrielle had worked out.

"I don't know if I'm happy or upset by that," Sarah said.

Eve tried not to repeat what she had said earlier. "Your mother is going to happy to see you, whenever it is."

"I've spent half my life away from her," she said.

Eve figured she was probably seven or eight years older than her.7- or 8-years-old, where would she have been? She would have been at that regular school, the one she attended before she was sent to the military one. In her what-if memories, Gabrielle would have received a letter from Lila and shrieked in excitement at it. Xena would have acted annoyed at her excitement but would have truly been exactly as excited. Xena would have instantly started charting a course to Potidaea but would have let Gabrielle think it was her idea once she stopped being blinded by her joy.

"Gabrielle and Xena…are they your parents?" Sarah asked confused.

Eve smiled. "Yes. I know it's strange. They don't appear old enough to be but they—"

"They are also both women," Sarah blurted out.

Eve thought that might be why she was asking. "That also," she said simply.

Part of her wanted to get mad at her for seeming to question the love her parents had for each other. They were far better than anyone who had tried to raise her or Sarah probably, after she left her parents. Eve didn't even have to turn around to know that Xena was in a deep sleep with her hair mashed around her face and her cheek pressed against the back of Gabrielle's head. She'd be leaning her head back into Xena and would be clenching Xena's right hand in both of hers. Eve used to watch them sleep, when she first started travelling with them. If they had that kind of love for each other, she knew she was going to be safe with them as the one child who belonged equally to both of them.

Sarah didn't know what to think of Eve's response. She had been told that women loving each other was wrong. Well, not wrong per say but it was against Gurkan's rules. It had happened with some of the wives over the years. They would enter the dungeon, but unlike Xena they would never come out. In some half-blocked memories of Sarah's, it felt like nothing about their relationship should be questioned. Did her mother tell her it was not a problem? Was it the boy from the barn? Those scrolls possibly written by her aunt? Or was it from a made up memory?

She had witnessed the way Xena and Gabrielle looked at each other when they were in the compound and when they came to save her. Surely, it couldn't be wrong. She had always believed love was always right. The real kind of love was, not her warped idea she had learned. She had looked at them on their bedroll, holding each other before she went to the railing. What could possibly be wrong about that? Thinking about it made her feel nervous and she blurted out the first retort she could think of.

"Why are you talking to me? Nobody else will," Sarah asked Eve.

She smiled, peered out to the water for a moment and then back at her. "I know what it is like for everyone to be afraid of whom you used to be even when you aren't that person anymore. They'll get over it."

Sarah peered over at her and felt like she might cry.

"We're also family, little cousin," she stated with a smile.

A tear ran down Sarah's face. She was relieved when Eve put her arm around her, allowing her to lean her head against her shoulder so she didn't have to ask if she could or do some other equally awkward action to get her to comfort her.

Sometimes Eve was astonished by her ability to talk to people, how could she have not inherited that from Gabrielle?

Xena seemed to be overly excited to be in Chin. Gabrielle did not seem to be as excited to be in the land she had not been in since Xena was carrying Eve.

"Lao Ma," Virgil said as if he was having an epiphany.

"What about her?" Eve asked the dumbfounded Virgil that was sitting between her and Sarah on the bench at their table at the inn they had stopped in for dinner.

He was peering at Xena and Gabrielle, who had moved to a different table after being recognized by an old friend. The friend had said something about Lao Ma, but Eve still wasn't sure why he brought her up again.

"She was…they were…I never realized it until right now," he said.

"Who? Xena and Lao Ma?" Eve questioned, but her younger cousins ignored her.

Virgil pointed at Sarah still in slight shock. "The Debt. Do you remember that scroll? We read that one together. It seems so much better now."

"We were such children when we read those. Xena loved her," Sarah said with the same tone.

Eve was caught off guard by what she had said for a moment. Sarah had definitely come out of her shell and warmed up to the idea of Xena and Gabrielle being soul mates since they left North Africa three weeks ago. Eve had read that scroll too but it was right after Xena had risked everything to save her and Gabrielle from the Olympian gods. She never understood that it could be interrupted in another way.

Gabrielle gave their friend a hug and Xena shook his hand. They walked over to Eve, Virgil and Sarah's table.

"I'm going to go make sure Yo gets off safely," Xena said. Yo was from the farthest away land from Mogador. She had family in Chin and was able to book save passage to Japa. Yo had been staying with her family since they arrived in Chin a few days ago.

Xena looked to Eve, who smiled and nodded.

"Bye," she said to Gabrielle as she leaned down and kissed her lightly.

"We'll be waiting here for you," Gabrielle answered. She watched Xena leave before turning to the kids' table.

"That was very…forward of you two," Eve pointed out.

Gabrielle rolled her eyes.

"It seems we only visit Chin about once a decade, so no need to worry about these people seeing too much," Gabrielle replied with a smile but sounded a bit nervous.

She sat down at their table and took a sip of her drink.

"So, finally to Greece next?" Virgil asked to fill the silence.

Gabrielle nodded. "Once we land, it will take us about two days to get back to Potidaea."

Eve didn't even have to look at Sarah, she could feel her nervousness. She was about to motion for Gabrielle to say something to her, but Gabrielle had noticed it too.

"It's exactly like it was when you left," Gabrielle told Sarah.

"How could you know that?"

"Because it is the same as when I left it the last time, before you were born," Gabrielle said.

Gabrielle continued on about Potidaea but Sarah had stopped listening. She was still trying to work out this part of her family. Her aunt by blood was talking about remembering a time before she was born so vividly but she couldn't have been more than five years older than her. She mentioned Xena a few times too and Sarah knew Xena didn't really seem old enough to be doing what Gabrielle remembered. Part of her wanted to meet Aries face-to-face. He had messed up her — and Eve's — life just like Gurkan had and she wanted to make him pay for it. But, after seeing her aunts and the man that the goofy boy from the barn had become, she was certain she was safer and better just hanging back and letting them handle it.

Sarah felt strange about her current situation when they had boarded the boat from Chin back to Greece. She had felt helpless, just like she always had. But, the difference now was that she had people trying to protect her.

One time in the night she felt some sort of unexplainable fear and wanted to go to her aunts and ask if she could sleep beside them. Somehow she knew that they would be fine with it and would say yes, but she was still too nervous to even try.

Instead, she walked past the bedrolls of the people she was told were her family and went all the way to the railing at the end of her ship.

Xena wasn't sure what woke her. She jolted awake in the blackness. From the light of the moon, she was able to pick out the figure standing at the front of the ship. She walked over and leaned up against the railing beside her.

"What's on your mind, kid?" Xena asked Sarah

Sarah smiled at herself for a moment. "You know until you guys broke me out of Gurkan's palace, I hadn't been asked what I was thinking in the longest time. It seems to be a favorite question of you and Eve."

Xena smiled. "Mostly because of Gabrielle's influence. People from Potidaea spend a lot of time looking out for each other."

"Right after I was taken I used to dream about Potidaea all the time. But after a while, I believed no one was coming for me and I stopped," Sarah said.

Xena was unsure what to say. She had spent so much time apologizing for the 25 unaccounted years that were not her fault, but Aries' for a while now. She was sick of it. Xena knew she and Gabrielle would have gone on this exact same journey 10 years ago if they had been around to do so.

"Virgil used to steal the scrolls from his parents and read them to me when he came to visit. You were my hero," Sarah said, but instantly felt nervous it. She quickly looked away, which seemed pointless because it was almost too dark for them to see each other anyway.

"Me?" Xena said with shock.

"You seemed so strong and brave and I just wanted to be exactly like you," she admitted.

Xena smirked. "Well you haven't read all of them. And you know Gabrielle…well, she left a lot of things out."

Sarah nodded in agreement. "Back then I never realized you guys were…"

Xena scoffed. "Not uncommon."

"I realize it now," she said. "I'm sorry I didn't before."

Xena laughed. "It's OK, kid. You didn't know me before."

"But in Gurkan's palace, I kicked you in the face for trying to help me, I stood by as they took you to the dungeon, tortured you just for trying to help Gabrielle, when really you were both just there to help me. That's what I'm sorry for."

"As Gabrielle said nobody blames you," Xena said.

Sarah watched the moonlight glistened off her eyes and somehow she knew everything she had been told over the past weeks was going to come true once they reached Potidaea.

"You can do this," Xena said to Sarah, who was standing between her and Gabrielle in front the farmhouse just like they all had more than a month ago.

"Do you want me to go first?" Gabrielle asked.

Sarah shook her head, but then looked at her nervously. "Would you just walk behind me?"

"Of course," Gabrielle said. She unhooked the clasp on the gate and kicked the bottom of it. Once it was open, Sarah walk through it toward the house. Gabrielle followed close behind.

Sarah nervously stood for a moment with her fist raised against the door. Finally, she knocked. A few moments later, the door opened.

Sarah froze and all the things she had prepared to say had left her head.

"Sarah," Lila said shocked and with tears in her eyes as she stepped forward and embraced her daughter.

"Gabrielle and Xena found me," Sarah said simply.

"Of course, they did," Lila said, mouthing 'thank you' to Gabrielle.

She nodded and turned to look back at Xena, who proudly smiled back at her.

After supper, Lila and Sarah had settled by the fire. Virgil and Eve went upstairs to the bedroom they were sharing. Gabrielle had contemplated what to do for a moment, then she smiled, grabbed Xena's hand and lead her outside into the barn.

"How'd I know we'd end up in the barn?" Xena asked her with a smile.

"Seems to be a tradition for us," Gabrielle said. "Ever since that first time."

Xena smugly smiled as she walked over to the bedrolls she had placed in the barn shortly after they arrived. "I rather enjoyed that first time."

Gabrielle laughed. "I remember."

It was the first time they had gone to visit each other's families as more than just friends. They had returned to Greece from India shortly before Solstice and decided they would go home to celebrate. They stopped in Amphipolis before heading to Potidaea. Gabrielle remembered being embarrassed about how her parents had acted after how nice Cyrene had been.

Xena said she barely had to say anything to her mother. She hadn't even questioned them. She knew they had been coming for days and had reserved only Xena's old bedroom for them. Gabrielle knew that Xena had brought others into that bed before and had always assumed her mother knew about it. Xena held Gabrielle close in her childhood bed and told her this was different.

"'Cause you love me and I'm better?" Gabrielle teased.

Xena laughed and kissed her on the head. "Yes that, Gabrielle. But, it is also what my mother has done. It's like she's approved or given us a blessing of some kind."

In Potidaea, they ended up in the barn. Well, at first, only Xena had. Gabrielle's parents didn't live in an inn but there were enough places where she and Xena could have slept. Gabrielle had thrown out numerous suggestions but her parents shot them all down. The only thing that had stopped her from lashing out at her parents then had been Xena and how mature she had been about the whole situation.

"But, I always sleep beside you," Gabrielle said with a hint of desperation, once she got Xena alone.

"You'd think I'd ever forget that," Xena said with a smug smile.

Gabrielle smiled and let Xena lean down her kiss her on the cheek.

"It's only for a couple of days, Gabrielle," she said.

That night, Gabrielle remembered lying awake in her bed in the room she shared with Lila finding a couple of days far too long.

It was ridiculous, Gabrielle thought. She was an Amazon Queen. She had travelled the world, seen more than her parents could even imagine. She had defeated the Destroyer and Hope in that barn and if she wanted to go sleep in it with the woman she loved she wasn't going to let her parents and anyone stop her.

Gabrielle had reached the door without realizing her sister was awake.

"Gabrielle…" She heard Lila say into the darkness.

She turned around to face her, though she could barely see her.

"I always liked Xena," she said softly before turning away from her and pretending she was asleep again.

Gabrielle opened the doors to the barn and took a few steps inside. She peered across the barn to Xena, who was sitting on the bedroll with her armor off, dressed for bed. Xena sighed as she placed her sword and sharpening stone beside the bedroll.

"Your parents aren't going to be happy if they find you out here," Xena said.

Gabrielle was barely able to stop herself from smiling at the way she had said it. She put up her bruiting, self-loathing exterior but all Gabrielle could see was the concern, worry and love behind it.

"I don't care what they think. I love you, Xena. They can find me and tell me never to come back if they want to. This isn't my home anymore, you are," she admitted as she closed the gap between them. She placed her hands on the sides of Xena's neck and guided her lips down to hers.

She kissed her with an intensity Xena hadn't felt since the night after they returned from Aiden's compound in India. She could feel the fight and intensity that had grown inside her since they first met. Mixed with the complex love and maturity of the Elijan she was turning into Xena could do nothing but crumble beneath her and follow her lead.

This time in the barn was different. They weren't out there because they had to be. Gabrielle had led her out there because she wanted to. Xena had laid out the bedroll with no sense of urgency or the crushing sadness she had felt during the first time all those years ago before Gabrielle had joined her.

Gabrielle watched her take off her armor and sit down on the bedroll.

"Well, come here," she said motioning to the space beside her.

Gabrielle obeyed. She pulled her sais out of her boots and placed them beside Xena's weapons before taking her place beside her. Gabrielle turned onto her left side as Xena turned onto hers. She put her right arm around Gabrielle and she held her hand within both of hers.

"You know for a while in Mogador I thought we might never get back here," Xena admitted softly.

"I thought the same a few times. But, I was stupid to think you couldn't withstand anything Gurkan would throw at you."

"Would have been far less if someone hadn't tried to pull a knife on him," Xena quipped.

"Hey, you drugged me and then frightened the children into going against the plan we had all agreed on," Gabrielle shot back.

"Yeah, I did. But either way, we got your niece back," Xena said.

"We got our niece back," Gabrielle said echoing what Xena had once said to her.

Xena laughed through her smirk. "Go to sleep, Gabrielle."


End file.
